CyanogenMod 9 for Samsung Galaxy S II Released [Hands-On Review]

The CyanogenMod team gave an awesome Christmas gift yesterday for all the Galaxy S II users. Finally, after waiting for about two months after the launch of Ice Cream Sandwich, they’ve released CyanogenMod 9 as an experimental build for the S2. Wuuf, this took more time than I wanted (not expected).

It is still under heavy development and will probably be finished in January/February 2012. Anyways, here’s my review after using the ROM for a couple of hours, in Bullet Style.

It’s hell lot faster and smoother than Gingerbread! Also, scrolling is very smooth. Touch sensitivity also seems to be improved. Transition animations are really impressive.

Sensors don’t work smoothly, it takes a second to change the orientation. I had to disable automatic rotation of screen.

It’s simply a stock build of ICS, there are no traces of CM customizations right now. Though the launcher, “Trebuchet Launcher” can be customized upto a bit. Generic CM9 stuffs will be available till February.

USB Storage doesn’t work, only MTP does. So using an app like Airdroid is the only option for faster access of files and more.

Most of the ICS compatible apps work in CM9, though I experienced few crashes with some of them like Tweetdeck, when trying to add my GPS location.

Face Unlock is very cool, better and more accurate than what I had always thought, even in low light conditions. Though, it takes a second to appear on CM9.

Two of my favorite apps don’t work: Swype and Dolphin browser. Damn.

Camera can only take photos of 3M resolution, video recording doesn’t work but panorama does work (wrong color profile).

Is it Stable Enough for Daily Use?

Yes it is. Although being an experimental build, it is quite stable. I’ve been using it since half a day and I’m quite satisfied with it. There are few small issues, listed below, but they can be sacrificed for ICS awesomeness.

What’s Not Working

RIL (Radio Interface Layer) may not work on providers with Network Identity and Time Zone (NITZ). Turning off NITZ is the only solution.

Button Backlights.

GPS.

I Couldn’t switch to 3G.

Wi-Fi hotspot

Low haptic feedback.

Sensors aren’t working very good.

Video recording.

Youtube video playback.

Some missing video codecs.

Almost each of the bugs mentioned above cannot be fixed unless a new ROM by Samsung is leaked. So, they won’t be updating this ROM till then. If you find a bug then please do not poke the developer for this. Developers don’t like it as it slows them dow:)